Asheville service industry workers seek aid amid Tropical Storm Helene

ASHEVILLE – When businesses across Western North Carolina closed ahead of Tropical Storm Helene they expected to reopen soon after the storm had passed. And yet, many doors will be shuttered far longer than intended or perhaps not reopen at all.

Asheville bartender Alex Cohn-Derrick said service industry workers weren’t prepared for the blow Helene dealt, stating the industry still hadn’t rebounded from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re going through this and we’re still trying to recover from the pandemic,” Cohn-Derrick.

Cohn-Derrick, a bartender, was displaced from her home in Candler after it was consumed by rushing water from a nearby creek.

She’s sought shelter with her Cantina Louie co-workers, Elizabeth Bryan and Trevor Cox, stating that though the water has retreated, the damage and mold have made her home uninhabitable.

Asheville bartender Alex Cohn-Derrick's home in Canton was flooded by water from a nearby creek amid Tropical Storm Helene.

Cox, a Candler resident, said his home was without electricity from Thursday morning until Monday night and it was still without water as of Oct. 1.

Cox said he’s also concerned about essentials and water becoming sparse in grocery stores.

Bryan said local restaurants are serving and distributing free meals and FEMA has arrived, but more immediate relief is needed for WNC residents.

“It’s like we’re on an island out here. Some people are still on an island,” Bryan said.

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Service industry relief aid

Cantina Louie in Gerber Village has remained closed since Sept. 27, as many neighborhoods are without electricity and the city is without water. The colleagues don’t know when they will return to work and weren’t prepared for the financial toll of being temporarily unemployed.

Bryan said Asheville’s service industry has been hurting for years, calling it “an unfairly treated population of people” paid $3.13 an hour plus tips ― North Carolina’s minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour. She said many people will struggle for jobs, especially in the food and beverage industry, for the unforeseeable future.

“We’ve all been fighting for many years to get a fair living wage since COVID, so this hit us hard,” Bryan said. “Being in this industry with so many restaurants out of business we don’t know what to do from here.”

Bryan said many aren’t unaware of how to file for unemployment.

Jen Hampton, lead organizer of a local service industry union Asheville Food and Beverage United, said service industry workers should first apply for FEMA aid. FEMA’s Disaster Unemployment Assistance program “provides temporary benefits to people who, as a result of a major disaster, lost or had their employment or self-employment interrupted.”

She recommends applying for disaster unemployment soon, like Southern Smoke Foundation, an organization dedicated to assisting service industry workers and business owners in the Southeast in need by providing funds that may be used “to pay for essentials like groceries, clothing, and medications, and have covered the cost of rent, natural disaster damages, lost wages and more.”

“Southern Smoke Foundation provides crisis relief funding to food and beverage workers, and we’ve already received 771 applications for assistance from F+B workers affected by Hurricane Helene,” Lindsey Brown, executive director and co-founder said in an email on Oct.1. “We are dedicated to taking care of this industry that doesn’t have a safety net — the same people who are always the first to take care of their own communities in a disaster.”

Brown said the organization intends to fund all qualified applicants as long as funds are available.

Giving Kitchen, another food service workers’ emergency assistance program, offers financial support and a network of community resources for those in need for up to six months after a crisis occurs.

Hampton said financial support, which includes support to self-employed small business owners, often covers areas like food, rent and medical expenses when people are affected by illness, injuries or natural disasters.

AVLFBU has continued to update area employees on resources, like relief funds, donation centers and places to get hot meals, groceries and water.

“We’re starting to hear from people who are in public housing complexes who are completely left out of the aid situation and don’t have Internet or anything,” Hampton said.

She said AVLFBU has delivered water, food and baby formula to Deaverview neighbors and more is needed in the food desert – an area without an accessible grocery store. And many other outlining communities have yet to be reached.

She said AVLFBU and the Southern Workers Assembly service industry union chapters in Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh are coordinating supply runs for neglected residents in the Asheville area.

Blow after blow

The tourism-driven city and region was entering “leaf season” – when high volumes of visitors flock to the area to vacation with the backdrop of the colorful fall foliage along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“This is how we make our money going into the holidays,” said Bryan, an assistant manager. “We can’t have the tourists come in. Unfortunately, we can’t have the locals come out to eat. They’re rebuilding their homes, they’re on limited budgets, so it’s going to be hard to bounce back from this.”

Bryan, who’d worked in the service industry in Florida for 15 years, said she’s experienced major back-to-back hurricanes in the state with electricity and water outages averaging a week and Floridians are better prepared for tropical storms.

She said the days-long water outage that happened over the holidays in December 2022 was challenging in Asheville and she can’t fathom the city being without water longer.

On Sept. 29, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer told the Citizen Times that water outages could last weeks due to the city’s “severely damaged” water system that services Buncombe County and the northern portion of Henderson County.

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